UU Review: Higher Ground

Introduction

This stage of UU was extremely diverse, introducing many new Pokemon who were not formerly seen as much. Several Pokemon emerged and flourished in this metagame, like Yanmega, who had the potential to completely dominate almost any playstyle with proper support. We saw new faces emerging once again, like Donphan, who was a very popular Pokemon in its debut. With a rather balanced metagame, we could see which pokemon did well (well enough to be nominated as a suspect in some cases!).This round produced 7 pokemon nominated by users as suspects. Before meeting these suspects we will look at the number of nominations for each.

Number Of Nominations

Pokemon

Number of Nominations

Yanmega

14

Milotic

5

Roserade

4

Registeel

3

Clefable

1*

Miltank

1*

Medicham

1*

(Pokemon with only 1 vote will not be featured in Meet The Suspects as they did not receive a sufficient amount of support to be voted on).

Why Was It Nominated?

Its Tinted Lens ability allowed it to hit neutrally with resisted attacks. This meant Yanmega did not need any set up to begin an onslaught and therefore lacked many safe switch-ins.

Yanmega was extremely difficult to revenge kill. Not only was it moderately fast, with a decent 95 base Speed, but it also had moderate 86 HP / 86 Defense stats. Without Stealth Rock, not even ridiculously strong priority attacks like Choice Banded Absol Sucker Punch could take it down.

On top of this, a key 4x Fighting resistance and a Ground immunity allowed Yanmega to come into common Choice locked attacks and protected it from Mach Punch and Vacuum Wave, two ubiquitous priority attacks of UU.

What If Yanmega Was Banned?

If Yanmega was banned, teams would no longer need to carry an absurd amount of priority attacks in order to stand a chance against Speed Boost / Choice Specs sweepers.

With Yanmega banned, teams could more safely use Pokemon like Donphan, Venusaur, and Hitmontop, whom Yanmega could easily switch into and threaten out.

With Yanmega banned, Pokemon like Slowking are free to reappear as special walls, formerly unable to do so because they were wiped out by Yanmega.

With the rise and dominance of Choice Specs Yanmega, Registeel rose extremely high in usage. With Yanmega banned, it will become somewhat less useful.

With the rise of Registeel usage to counter Yanmega, Magneton and Dugtrio also gained more usage primarily for their ability to trap Registeel. With Registeel usage potentially declining, this may decline as well.

The removal of Yanmega will make offensive play more viable. Previously, offensive teams had next-to-no viable switch-ins for Tinted Lens Yanmega thanks to its ability to nullify resistances. Yanmega's other ability, Speed Boost, nullified revenge killing, a prime tactic of offensive teams.

Why Was It Nominated?

Excellent typing and solid defensive stats enable Milotic to reliably switch into near half of the UU tier. A great base Special Defense allows Milotic to invest heavily in Defense and still be able to take on the majority of Special Attacks.

Despite being used primarily as a defensive Pokemon, Milotic's offensive stats are still quite good. Base 100 Special Attack deters many Pokemon from switching into Milotic, and base 81 Speed lets Milotic outrun slower sweepers such as Hitmontop, Azumarill, and some Blaziken.

Two common ways of breaking through walls like Milotic are through boosting sweepers and Toxic. Haze allows Milotic to stop slower set up sweepers like Curse Registeel or Calm Mind Spiritomb in their tracks, removing their defensive boosts and making them easier to KO.

Milotic can nullify status through Rest + Sleep Talk. What sets it apart from other RestTalkers is its ability Marvel Scale. Marvel Scale boosts Milotic's physical defense when Milotic is inflicted with status, which allows Milotic to benefit from being asleep.

Rounding it all off is Milotic's access to the reliable healing move of Recover, which other bulky Water-types in UU would kill to have.

What If Milotic Was Banned?

With one of their most common checks removed, physical Water-types like Azumarill and Feraligatr, along with Fire-types like Blaziken, Houndoom, and Arcanine, would dominate the tier.

A great part about Milotic was the fact that it could easily be placed into any type of team and still fufill its role solidly. Without Milotic, all types of teams lose a potential bulky Water backbone. Milotic filled a unique niche, and substitutes for it would be hard to find, especially on stall teams. For example, Slowbro is unable to nullify opposing Pokemons' stat boosts, Blastoise lacks access to instant recovery, and Altaria is hampered by a Stealth Rock weakness.

Pokemon like Calm Mind Spiritomb would gain more use as a stallbreaker, as Haze Milotic, a staple of UU Stall, would no longer be there to negate it's boosts.

Without Milotic in the tier, Rain Dance sweepers will grow in potential. Milotic is often the one Pokemon standing in the way of specific rain sweepers, namely Omastar and Gorebyss, due to its resistance to Water and solid Special Defense. In the absence of Milotic, these two Pokemon will become much more viable.

Why Was It Nominated?

Thank to a massive base 125 Special Attack stat backed with Life Orb, one is hard-pressed to find something that can safely switch into Roserade. That, alongside with excellent neutral coverage, means that it is possible for Roserade to 2HKO almost the entire UU metagame. Sleep Powder also allows Roserade to shut down potential switch-ins like Chansey and Registeel, eliminating potential counters and turning them into sitting ducks for other Pokemon.

Thanks to a solid base 105 Special Defense stat, Roserade can freely switch in on many weaker special attackers, primarily bulky Waters. Roserade also possesses key resistances that allow it to switch into weaker Close Combats and various Grass- and Electric-type attacks.

Natural Cure allows Roserade to not be permanently hampered by status like Thunder Wave or burn, which could otherwise end a sweep.

Roserade has a somewhat reliable recovery move in Synthesis, which sets it apart from most other Life Orb sweepers, who are helpless to being worn down by Life Orb recoil and residual damage.

What If Roserade Was Banned?

With Roserade banned, bulky Water-types will have one less switch-in to worry about. Ice Beam will not be as essential as it formerly was, and teams can now use Water-types much more easily.

With Roserade banned, an immediate sleep absorber will not be needed as much, as Roserade was the most common sleep inducer in the tier.

Registeel usage would possibly decline, as it was one of few 100% counters to Roserade's offensive Life Orb set.

With Roserade banned, teams looking for a good Spiker must now rely on Pokemon such as Omastar and Cloyster.

Without Roserade, Lum Berry leads will likely altogether disappear, as Roserade was the only common lead to carry a sleep move.

Banning Roserade removes one of stall's best answers to special attackers that dedicated special walls such as Chansey and Registeel struggled against. Such Pokemon included Substitute / Charge Beam Rotom and Venusaur, and without Roserade, it will become somewhat harder for stall to answer these threats.

Without Roserade, UU Stall teams may resort back to using Toxic Spikes, as Roserade will not be there to instantly remove them upon switching in.

Why Was It Nominated?

Registeel's huge defenses and Steel-typing allow it to switch into common threats like Roserade and Yanmega and begin to set up multiple Curses.

Curse allows Registeel to buffer both its Attack and Defense while already taking special hits like a champ, making it incredibly hard to take down. Within a few boosts, Registeel is near impregnable.

What If Registeel Was Banned?

Losing Registeel would mean losing a Pokemon that counters a lot of threats at once, including LO Roserade, Sub/CM Mismagius, Swellow, and Altaria. Teams would have to rely on several Pokemon to counter those Pokemon instead.

Without Registeel, some teams will struggle to find a pokemon that can easily lay Stealth Rock and spread paralysis support, something Registeel did like no other.

Without Registeel, teams will no longer have to worry as much about not having a way to beat last pokemon Curse Registeel, something that could formerly be a problem without something like Milotic.

The Voting

Why Was Yanmega The Only One Voted On?

Yanmega was deemed a proper suspect because of the amount of good, clear nominations it received. Pokemon like Registeel, Roserade, and Milotic received several nominations, but many of them were too sketchy to consider. This significantly reduced the pool of countable nominations for other Pokemon. Part of something being deemed too powerful for the metagame is determined by the amount of users who think it's broken, and there was not enough of a threshold of support for any other Pokemon nominated besides Yanmega. Despite the clarity of the remaining acceptable nominations, there were simply not enough to provide a convincing argument that the Pokemon in question was broken.

Results

Those who wished to vote on Yanmega's tiering were required to submit paragraphs explaining how they would judge Yanmega and why they felt it was BL or UU. The facilitators of the UU suspect test, JabbaTheGriffin and reachzero, judged the quality of the paragraphs and if the paragraphs were suitable, allowed the writer to vote.

In the end, ten voters were permitted to do so, and they unanimously declared Yanmega to be BL.

What Happened To Roserade?

Roserade did not receive sufficient support to be moved to BL, so some may be wondering why it was banned from UU. Every 3 months, tier changes occur, and during the past 3 months Roserade has received enough usage in OverUsed play to be a part of that tier, thus removing it directly from UU without a vote even occuring.

In case you have not been following these tier changes, it has also brought Rhyperior, Umbreon, and Alakazam down to UU.

Thank you for reading, Eo and I both agree it was a pleasure to write this!